Lowest bid isn’t best bid
Thai travellers had a legitimate complaint recently when they found themselves standing in front of useless passport scanning machines at the two main Bangkok airports. Hundreds of passengers on dozens of flights had to submit their documents “the old-fashioned way” to immigration officers. Of course there were a tiny number of them. The point of automated passport control is to reduce or eliminate the familiar officer armed with stamps, pens and a stern attitude towards fake travel documents.
The problem with the passport machines was that they lost their connection with the internet, where the software for immigration controls is stored. The airport managers shrugged because they are not responsible for the machines. Top Immigration Bureau officers quickly stated it was not their fault. The contractor responsible for linking the machines to passport-scanning programmes was not around. And that contractor, the state-owned TOT Plc, doesn’t have the budget for either backup systems or 24-hour on-site maintenance.
No consolation for the several hundred Thai travellers in a human traffic jam at a tiny few immigration booths, but thousands of other passengers were having a similar problem, for the same reason. Airlines were grounded at airports in London, Paris, Washington, Zurich, Melbourne, Johannesburg and Singapore. The check-in software of the Amadeus Altea system failed. It took more than a day just to get the system working smoothly again. That meant hundreds of flights missed, thousands of lives affected.
These two events send a strong warning about automation. In short, big business and governments are installing massive systems that rely on computers, yet seem to have no backup systems at all. If an individual or small business fails to back up its computer data, they are ridiculed as poor planners and responsible for their own failures and losses. But when government or state-owned corporations do it, it is all in the name of cutting costs.
And cutting costs means, in every case, cutting quality. Case in point: it is entirely possible for the Immigration Bureau and Airports of Thailand to install robust passport scanning systems with multiple backups. If the main system goes down, a backup, emergency system immediately takes over. Think of the fail-safe power systems in hospitals. If the mains go down, generators kick in. And backups for the main backup are on standby.
It is not a lack of planning that caused the airport problems in Bangkok and around the world last week.
It is planning that eliminates emergency systems. It is questionable whether the TOT provides the least fragile internet solutions with backup systems. Contract bids are usually won by companies submitting the lowest bid. This is the opposite of granting contracts based on quality. Low bids too often result in the contractor getting what it pays for — the cheapest systems that work, but fragile and without an instant backup service.
By excluding backups, a vital part of the computer system, government and business allowed the travelling public to absorb their own shortcomings.
China last week admitted its lack of planning has left the country with a more dangerous problem. The leader in electric vehicle (EV) production is realising it has no effective system to recycle or dispose of millions of extremely dangerous, large, lithium-ion batteries that have to be discarded and replaced about every five years. EVs reduce emissions.
A quarter of a million tonnes of discarded EV batteries present a different and even more serious threat to the environment.
Governments promising “Thailand 4.0” and its equivalent around the world owe citizens more thoughtful planning. It is unacceptable to award technology contracts to the lowest bidder. Airline and immigration software, and huge recycling factories demand the very best systems, even if they cost more.